Exhibitions

Medieval Manuscripts
Eddas and Sagas

Many of Iceland’s national treasures are on display in the Culture House’s featured exhibition Medieval Manuscripts – Eddas and Sagas. It includes the principal medieval manuscripts, such as Codex Regius of the Poetic Edda and the compendium Flateyjarbók, as well as law codices and Christian works, not to forget the Sagas of Icelanders. Important paper manuscripts from later centuries are also displayed.

The ancient vellum manuscripts preserve the Northern classical heritage: unique sagas, poems and narratives which are often our sole written sources of information on the society, religion and world view of the people of Northern Europe from pagan times through the tumult of Viking Expansion, the settlement of the Atlantic Islands and the period of Christianisation.

The exhibition focuses on the period preceding the writing of the manuscripts, their origins and role, manuscript collecting, editions, and on their reception in Iceland and abroad. It also portrays the process of book making itself: preparing the vellum and ink, writing, illuminating etc. are explained in a special exhibit area.

There is an open guided tour of the exhibition in English every Monday and Friday at 3:30 pm.

Opened 5 October 2002, on permanent view

ICELAND :: FILM

Berlin - Copenhagen - Reykjavík

The ICELAND::FILM exhibition traces for the first time the development of Icelandic filmmaking from its origins around 1904 to the year 2009.

Icelandic filmmaking reflects the role generally played by art – to mirror sociocultural evolution and serve as a platform where questions are asked and experiments made. The opposition between myths and modernity, and traditions and globalisation, is a frequent theme of Icelandic films in all categories; documentaries, literature and Saga adaptations, feature films, short films and experimental films.

Specially assembled film excerpts give insight into the atmosphere and theme of significant films. On four “film islands”, one for each genre; feature film, documentary, short film and literature adaptation, a total of approximately 100 films can be selected and viewed in full length.

Designed in terms of a public archive, the exhibition provides a comprehensive overview of Icelandic filmmaking and thus Iceland’s social and cultural history over the past 100 years. The composition and structural design of this travelling exhibition works as an open system: it can be upgraded with new productions and further historical material. New topics may even be integrated. The exhibition has been prolonged to September and on that occasion additional film excerpts from recent movies will be added and premiered on Museum Night, 12 February.

The travelling exhibition will return to its country of origin once its time is up here and will be mounted in the Icelandic pavilion at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2011.

Various happenings are planned in the exhibition and will be posted under “Programme” on the home page.

Curators – idea/ concept/ exhibition design: Sabine Schirdewahn and Matthias Wagner K - Berlin

From 28 March 2009 and into September 2010

Icelanders

Icelanders is an exhibition of a selection of photographs from the book of the same name by author Unnur Jökulsdóttir and photographer Sigurgeir Sigurjónsson, published in 2004. Published in four language versions – Icelandic, English, German and French – the book was very well received both in Iceland and abroad. It was nominated for the Icelandic Literary Award.

Unnur and Sigurgeir set out to capture the spirit of the Icelandic nation in words and images: they travelled all over the country for two years, visiting people, talking to them and taking photographs. They found that there are two nations living in Iceland – the city-dwellers, and the people who live in the regions: those who live on remote headlands and upland crofts, in isolated valleys and fjords far from the beaten path. These people are attuned to the land and its nature, moulded by their environment. And these were the people who captured their imagination, and became the subject of the book.

The photographic exhibition Icelanders has previously been shown at the Nordic arts festival Les Boréales in France.

From 2 February 2010 to 16 January 2011

The Library Room

The Library Room, the old reading room of the National Library, features an exhibit selected and arranged by the National and University Library. On display are many of the landmark books of Icelandic cultural history, dating from the introduction of printing in the sixteenth century to the present day. These include the oldest published versions of the Sagas of Icelanders, Sagas of the Kings of Norway and Eddic poems, Hallgrímur Pétursson’s Psalms of Christ’s Passion and Vidalín’s Homilies, popular educational works from the Enlightenment, law codices and land registers, cultural journals and folktale collections from the nineteenth century, the works of Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness and other writers, selected books of poetry and much more.

A number of changing themed exhibitions run throughout the year in the Library Room. It serves as a bright and elegant setting for concerts, meetings, lectures and other events held at the Culture House.

Opened 20 April 2000, on permanent view

A Year in Postcards

The artists Vera Sölvadóttir and Jarþrúður Karlsdóttir have mounted an exhibition at the Culture House. The exhibition is entitled A Year in Postcards and follows up on their yearlong performance of sending a postcard a week to a random stranger abroad. They wrote a friendly message on each card, recounting the events of the week. When they started this act in the summer of 2008 they did not foresee the staggering changes about to hit Icelandic society in the coming months. The chain of events reflects in the messages they wrote on the postcards, always with a hopeful and loving frame of mind as the purpose was to cheer the recipient up with an unexpected greeting from a small island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Aside from photographs of the postcards, the exhibition entails a sound piece and a video installation.

From 17 December 2009 to 7 March 2010

Flora Islandica

The publication Flora Islandica, with 271 real-size drawings by Eggert Pétursson of flowers in Icelandic nature, has been put on view in the Culture House. The book is published in 500 numbered and signed copies.

The Culture House displays the book as it is a grand appendage to the nation’s heritage regarding books and publications. Its display also regards the history of the Natural History Museum and its operation here in the Culture House for decades in the last century.

Eggert Pétursson has gained a reputation for his paintings of Icelandic Flora, especially his oil paintings of flowers, which have positioned him among Iceland’s best known contemporary artists. Eggert Pétursson originally drew the pictures for the book Icelandic Flora with colour drawings by Ágúst H. Bjarnason, issued in 1983. The drawings were diminished in that publication and have not been printed in their original size until now in Flora Islandica.

The book is designed by graphic designers Snæfríð Þorsteins and Hildigunnur Gunnarsdóttir and they have been granted prices for the design here in Iceland and abroad. The desk the book is displayed on was designed by artist Daníel Magnússon who has become renowned for his artwork as well as his furniture design.

The book is published by Crymogea publishing.

From 7 October to 31 December 2009

Art exhibition series in the Culture Shop and Café

The artist Yst currently displays coal and chalk drawings in the Culture Shop and Café. The show is entitled Newcastle - New York – New Iceland and the drawings were made in Newcastle in 2007, New York in 2008 and in New Iceland in 2009, post meltdown. Yst describes the subject matter of her art thus: Hope is common to all who start anew and push forward, either by spatial or temporal relocation or as reflected in names implying something new.

The show is up during the darkest months, from the beginning of December through February 2010.

Yst is a psychologist with an MFA degree from Newcastle. She has solely pursued a carrier as an artist for the last decade. See more at: yst.is.

From 7 December 2009 and through February 2010

Exhibitions in the Meeting Rooms

Opened 20 April 2000, on permanent view, Sundays